Following Baby Slice win, Corey Browning sees Aaron Chalmers booking as a ‘mistake’

MMAfighting.com

Corey Browning shot to notoriety in October when he upset that applecart to score a second-round win over Kevin Ferguson Jr., commonly known as “Baby Slice”, and he expects to claim another polarizing scalp when he faces Aaron Chalmers in the co-main event of Bellator Newcastle on Feb. 9.

Speaking on the latest episode of Eurobash, Browning admitted that had never heard of the U.K. fighter, who rose to fame as a cast member of MTV’s Geordie Shore, before Bellator reached out to him about a potential bout with Chalmers.

“One day I just got a call, ‘Hey, what do you think about fighting this Aaron Chalmers guy?’ and I said, ‘Who the hell is that?’” remembered Browning. “I never knew who he was before that, so I looked him up and I see that it’s another guy that’s famous, but not really famous for fighting. I feel like Bellator is fast tracking me down the line a bit.”

Given that he was already familiar with “Baby Slice” before they fought, Browning has a hard time seeing the Chalmers title as bigger fight than his successful Bellator debut.

“I think Baby Slice was a bigger fight for me, personally. It was the call and I knew who Baby Slice was before I got that call. I had seen him before and I knew who he was. I’m in Canada right now and I’ve met a lot of British kids lately, some from England and some from Scotland and all of them know who [Chalmers] is, but they kind of want me to win. They’re telling me, ‘I hope you beat this kid’s ass,’ which is kind of funny.”

While he may not be familiar with Chalmers, who boasts a record of 4-0 since making his debut in May 2017, Browning is positive that he has a huge advantage when it comes to fighting experience.

“I have four professional wins, but I had an amateur career. I went 4-1 as an amateur; my amateur career is longer than his pro career and I have a pro career that’s longer than his pro career. There is an experience gap,” he said. “Sometimes I see people saying that Aaron Chalmers is about to step in the cage with someone that’s a lot better than him, but three months ago I scored the fifth biggest upset in Bellator history, me beating Baby Slice. That’s real.”

Browning is adamant that Chalmers has never fought someone as durable as him.

“I don’t think Aaron Chalmers has ever fought someone with the general toughness that I have. He’s gonna be able to hit me and I’m not going to go down, I don’t know how he’s going to react to that. Baby Slice hit me and I didn’t go down, nothing that he did worked and he ended up being mentally broken in the second round,” he recalled.

“I’ve watched Aaron Chalmers fights and [his opponents are] very finish-able and I’m not a very easily finished person. You’re pretty much going to have to KO me, finish me with a choke or break my arm, because my toughness levels are a lot higher than these other guys.”

When he fought Ferguson Jr., Browning put Bellator’s decision to make the booking down to the promotion’s lack of intel on his skillset. As far as the Chalmers booking is concerned, he feels as though Bellator has made a mistake by putting him in with one of their most-followed fighters.

“I look at [booking me against Aaron Chalmers] like it was a mistake, I was thinking, ‘What are they doing?’ [They’re doing this] again? When they put me with Baby Slice, I figured that they didn’t know, but now they know and they’re doing it again.”

Although Chalmers will own the hometown advantage in Newcastle, Browning is confident that the disparity between him and “The Joker” will be too much to see the Brit’s hand raised.

“I’m going in to win. I’m not a game planning type of guy, it’s just not how I fight and any time I’ve tried that it’s ended up biting me in the butt. I’m just going to go into that cage and I’m going to fight him,” Browning said.

“If I feel like I need to takedown, I’ll take him down. There’s no way that his grappling is as good as mine, it’s just not. But that’s not my goal [taking Chalmers down], I just want to fight him. I think he’s going to get hit a few times and wish he wasn’t there anymore.”

Check out the latest episode of Eurobash. The Corey Browning interview begins at 1:04:00.